Canal Street Line

Canal Street Route

With the great success of the Riverfront route, New Orleans decided to rebuild its Canal Street streetcar route. The line replaces the Route 42 bus that had been running on the neutral ground of Canal Street since the 1960's when the streetcars were retired due to so-called modernization, replaced with air conditioned buses. Canal Street is New Orleans' "Main Street". After much planning, and rebuilding, on Oct 2, 2003, a streetcar returned to Canal Street for the first time in almost 40 years, as unit #2017 cautiously progressed towards the Cemeteries for a test run. Revenue operation is to begin in Spring 2004 after a few months of testing and finishing touches.

The route begins at Esplanade, and runs with the Riverfront Line to Canal Street where it turns to the neutral ground for the entire length of Canal St. for its journey of about 3 miles, ending at City Park Avenue at the cemeteries. There is also a 1 mile streetcar spur off of the Canal Street route that connects the Canal Street route to Beauregard Circle at City Park, and runs along the neutral ground of N. Carrollton Avenue for its 1 mile run.

The rolling stock for the Canal St. line, in the 2000 series, consists of streetcars built by the RTA themselves, and are also replicas to the 1924 Perley Thomas units. For the new units, they wanted to preserve the roofline and vintage look of the 900 series units, make them ADA compliant, and include air-conditioning. Unlike the tourist Riverfront route, the Canal St. route is mainly a commuter line, and it would have been a hard-sell if they were going to replace air-conditioned buses and with hot and sweaty "vintage" streetcars. The RTA built and tested prototype unit #2001 to meet these challenges. The test unit was successful and its sisters 2002 to 2024 were built entirely from scratch at the RTA's own Carrollton shop.

The stations consist of ground level concrete side platforms, some with bus shed-like structures. The entire line is in the neutral ground of Canal Street, which is concrete east of Interstate 10, and grass west of Interstate 10. The N. Carrollton spur is in the grassy neutral ground of that street.

The Fleet

Canal Street Inaugural

In New Orleans, any major event is another reason to party. About 200 people gathered at Canal and Salcedo Streets at 3:10am on April 18, 2004 for the party thrown for the first Canal Streetcar in nearly 40 years--waiting for the first car to pull out from the new A. Philip Randolph Station. Coffee and beignets were served--another New Orleans tradition. ---Peter Ehrlich.

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